


A Pleasure to Burn

by cosmicallylame



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: (kind of), AU, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Amnesia, Angst, Bonding, Canon-Typical Violence, Everybody Lives, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Mind Meld, Not Canon Compliant, Psychic Bond, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Telepathic Bond, Thomas is an empath (kinda), WICKED | WCKD Is Good, basically everything is the same except the boys have superpowers, canon is mine now, cause why not, cross between X-Men and lord of the flies, im aware of how ridiculous this sounds, is what im trying to say, it’s an Evil Organization™, james dashner??, lots of swearing, minho throws fuckin fireballs, so is newt, the FLARE isn’t a virus, these boys deserved better, who is he
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-10 17:08:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15296148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicallylame/pseuds/cosmicallylame
Summary: The AU where all the Gladers have superpowers, and two rival government organizations have been fighting long and bloody for a chance to figure out why.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> un-beta’d. any and all mistakes are my own.

He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, rusty air. 

Immediately, he became aware of two things: one, the grating _clackclackclack_ sound all around him of metal grinding against metal; two, the splitting pain behind his eyelids. 

A lurching shudder shook the floor beneath him, and the boy fell down at the sudden movement. The insistent throbbing in his head worsened. He saw white. Breathing accelerated, he shuffled backward on his hands and feet and blinked rapidly, willing the bright white of his surroundings to go away. 

After a few seconds, his vision cleared. The pain in his skull did not. 

He pulled his legs up tight against his body, hoping his eyes would adjust to the darkness now all around him. Once they did, the boy soon realized there wasn’t much to see. Concrete floor beneath him, rusted metal walls on all four sides, containing him. Trapping him. Outlines of chains and pulleys, like the workings of an ancient steel factory. The harsh sounds of their mechanisms echoed menacingly through the space. 

The lightless elevator seemed to be jerking him upward, swaying back and forth as it ascended. The movement only served to aggravate his headache, and the boy’s stomach soon grew sour with nausea, a smell like burnt oil invading his senses. He felt the contents of his stomach begin to stir, and he vomited onto the cold floor before sliding along the wall at his back until he hit the corner of the room, away from the acrid substance. 

He wanted to cry, wanted the sense of release tears could bring him, but no such tears came. He wanted to scream, but his voice came out hoarse, and his cries for help quickly dissolved into a series of ragged coughs.

He could only sit there, alone, waiting. 

_My name is Thomas,_ he thought. 

That...that was the only thing he could remember about his life. He didn’t understand. How could something like this be possible? His mind functioned without flaw or hitch, bar the massive headache he was currently having. Knowledge flooded his thoughts, facts and images, memories and details of the world and how it worked. He pictured riding a bike down a leaf-strewn road, holding someone’s hand, the feeling of wet sand under his toes and the taste of salt in his mouth, eating a hamburger, a woman’s laughter, the sounds and colors of a busy city square with hundreds of people bustling about.

And yet they all somehow seemed so...incomplete. So empty. Like something very crucial to his existence had simply been removed. And if he tried to mentally unpack that feeling and figure out what caused it or why it was there, he was met with a fresh, hot stab of pain behind his eyes. To put it simply, he had no idea where he came from, who his parents were, why he had a pounding headache, or how he’d gotten inside a dark, rusty elevator. 

The room continued its ascent, swaying all the while. Thomas grew immune to the incessant rattling of the chains that pulled him upward. A long time had passed, he knew. The minutes stretched into hours, although really it was impossible to know for sure because every moment he spent in this godforsaken box felt like a lifetime. 

No. 

He was smarter than that. _Trust your instincts,_ Thomas told himself. He estimated he’d been moving for roughly half an hour, and he couldn’t explain why, but he knew he was correct. Alongside his fear, he felt an intense, burning curiosity bubbling up inside him like magma. He wanted to know where he was and what the _hell_ was happening to him. 

With a groan and a _clunk_ , the room halted its ascent. The sudden change jolted Thomas from his huddled position and threw him across the hard floor. As he scrambled to his feet, Thomas noticed the swaying gradually come to a stop, the back-and-forth movements becoming less and less pronounced until everything finally stilled. The room was dead silent, save for Thomas’ labored breathing. 

A minute passed. Two. Three. He looked wildly in every direction but could see no changes to his surroundings. Taking care to avoid his puddle of sick from earlier, Thomas felt along the walls and low ceiling once again for a trapdoor, an air vent, a fucking garbage chute, anything to _get him out of here_. But there was nothing, nothing except hard, unyielding metal. Thomas groaned in frustration, and his echo was amplified through the small space. 

The lingering remnants of sound mocked him. 

It faded; silence returned. 

Abruptly, a loud clank rang out from somewhere above him and he sucked in a startled breath as he looked up, trying to locate the source. A horizontal line of light appeared straight across the ceiling, and Thomas could only watch as it broadened. A heavy grating sound revealed double sliding doors being forced open. After so long sitting in the near-complete darkness, the light stabbing directly into his eyes felt like a personal assault. Quickly looking away, he covered his face with both hands. 

He heard noises above him—voices, speaking, and a he felt the dormant fear in him spring to life with a punch to his gut. 

“Look at this shank.”

“How old’s this one?” 

“Jesus, what’s that smell?”

“Is that...puke?”

“Looks like klunk in a T-shirt.” 

“You’re the klunk, shuck-face.” 

“Hope you enjoyed the one-way trip, Greenie.”

“Ain’t no ticket back, bro.”

Thomas was hit with a wave of panicked confusion. These voices were—odd. Tinged with echo. Some of the words they used were familiar to him; others felt completely foreign. He squinted towards the chattering noise above him and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light. At first glance, he could see only moving figures, but the shadowy blobs slowly morphed into the shapes of bodies—humans, people, all bending over the hole in a huddle. Looking down at him, pointing. 

Then, as if the lens of a camera had sharpened its focus, the faces cleared. All of them were boys. Some older, some younger—but they were all teenagers. Kids. Thomas didn’t know what he’d expected, but this? Somehow seeing these faces only puzzled him further. He felt his fear diminish a little, but not enough to calm his racing pulse, or to sate his curiosity, which was growing fiercer by the minute. What the hell was he _doing_ here?

Someone magically produced a rope from who-knows-where and lowered it into where Thomas was standing, the end of it tied into a big loop. Thomas hesitated, then stepped into it with his right foot and gripped the rope hard as he was yanked toward the group of boys above him. Hands reached down, too many to count, grabbing him by his clothes, his elbows, pulling him up. The world seemed to spin, a swirling mist of faces and color and light. A storm of emotions wrenched his gut, twisted and knotted and pulled, and Thomas was just so fucking _overwhelmed_ and he wanted to scream or cry or burst into flames or— 

The chorus of voices had quieted, but one boy spoke as he was yanked over the sharp edge of the dark box. And Thomas knew he’d never forget the words. 

“Nice to meet ya, shank,” the boy said. “Welcome to the Glade.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry this chapter is so short!! i just really felt that for pacing, it had to end where it did. future chapters will not be this short. ALSO, i apologize that it’s so similar to the novel’s first chapter. i tried to change as much as i could and make the style my own without changing the actual events. i PROMISE, within the next couple chapters my story will deviate from the novel’s storyline DRASTICALLY (it is an AU after all), but for this first chapter it had to be basically the same. 
> 
> also, i plan for this to be kind of a mish-mash between the books and the movies and my own personal headcanons so if u have any questions feel free to message my tumblr  
> @cosmicallylame and i’ll try to clear up any confusion. 
> 
> also, the title is from Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”.  
> all that aside, i do plan to continue this as a fairly long, multi-chaptered fic and i hope you will enjoy the ride with me!
> 
> thank you for reading and deciding to give my whackass  
> AU a chance! remember that comments and kudos are a writer’s bread and butter AKA they keep me and many other  
> authors motivated to keep doing what they’re doing. so, if you really enjoy a story don’t forget to take a second to show the author some love. 
> 
>  
> 
> until next time!  
> \- jess <3


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> un-beta’d.

The helping hands didn’t stop swarming around him until Thomas was standing up straight and had the dust brushed off from his clothing. Still a little dazzled by the abundance of light, he staggered slightly. He was consumed with curiosity, but his head was still pounding, and he felt too ill to look very closely at his new surroundings. The other boys said nothing as he swiveled his head around desperately, trying to take it all in. 

After a minute or so of Thomas turning in a slow circle, his companions began to snicker and stare; some even reached out and poked him with a finger. There had to be at least fifty of them, their clothes smudged and sweaty as if they’d worked every day of their lives. It was a diverse group, all shapes and sizes and races, their hair of varying lengths and colors. Thomas could detect no pattern in their outward appearance. He suddenly felt dizzy, his eyes undecided on whether to look at the mass of teenage boys or the bizarre place in which he’d found himself. 

They stood in a vast courtyard of sorts. Thomas estimated it to be about 10 or 15 times the size of a football field, surrounded by four enormous walls made of dark gray stone and criss-crossed with long vines of thick ivy. The walls had to be a hundred feet high. They formed a perfect square around the courtyard, each side split in the exact middle by an opening as tall as the walls themselves that, from what little Thomas could see, led to stone passages and long, dark corridors beyond. 

“Look at the Greenbean,” one voice said (Thomas failed to pinpoint who it came from). “Gonna break his shuck neck checkin’ out the new digs.” Several boys laughed along. 

“Shut your hole, Gally,” a deeper voice responded. 

Thomas turned his attention back to the dozens of strangers crowding around him. God, he wished his head would stop hurting. He couldn’t concentrate on anything for too long, and the all the light and voices were not _fucking helping_. He barely held back a wince as another sharp pulse of pain tore through his head. He knew he must look out-of-it. He felt like he’d been drugged. 

A short, pudgy boy fidgeted back and forth on his feet, looking up at Thomas with wide eyes. A thick, heavily muscled Asian kid folded his arms as he studied Thomas, his tight shirtsleeves rolled up to show off his biceps. A dark-skinned boy with long sleeves (seriously, what the fuck? It was fucking _hot_ in this place) and gloves on his hands frowned—the same one who’d welcomed him.  
Countless others stared. 

“Where am I?” Thomas asked. He mentally cringed at how unsteady his voice came out. Even to his own ears, he sounded like a cornered animal. 

“Nowhere good.” This came from the dark-skinned boy. “Just slim yourself nice and calm now, alright?” 

“Which Keeper he gonna get?” someone shouted from the back of the crowd. 

“I told ya, shuck-face,” another voice responded. “He’s a piece of klunk, so he’ll be a Slopper—no doubt about it.” He giggled at himself like it was the funniest thing he’d heard in centuries. 

Thomas once again felt an ache of unfamiliarity and confusion at these people’s words. The language they used made almost no sense to him. _Shank. Shuck. Klunk. Slopper. Keeper._ They popped out of the boys’ mouths so naturally it seemed so strange for Thomas to not understand. It was as if his mysterious memory loss had stolen a chunk of his vocabulary as well—it was disorienting, to say the least. 

A dizzying whirlwind of emotions swept through him as each of them battled for dominance in his brain. Confusion, curiosity, panic, fear, one after the other. But laced through them all was the dull pang of complete hopelessness, like the world as he knew it had ended, had been wiped away and replaced with something terrible. He wanted to run and hide from these people. 

A boy with a nasally voice was speaking. “—couldn’t even do that much. Bet my liver on it.” Thomas couldn’t see his face. 

“I said shut your holes!” the black boy with gloves yelled. “Keep yapping and next break’ll be cut in half!” 

_That must be their leader,_ Thomas realized. Hating how everyone wouldn’t stop gawking at him, he instead concentrated on studying the place the boy had called the Glade a little more carefully. He ignored the pain in his head and looked at an odd, dilapidated wooden building near one of the corners of the square. A few trees surrounded it, their roots like gnarled fingers digging into the ground for good. 

Another corner of the compound held gardens—from where he was standing, Thomas recognized corn, tomato plants, fruit trees. Across the courtyard from there stood wooden pens holding pigs and cows and sheep and chickens. A large grove of trees filled the final corner; the ones that were closest to the front looked wilted and dying. 

The sky overhead was a cloudless, unobtrusive blue, but Thomas could not locate a sun despite the grueling temperature and vivid brightness of the day. The ominous shadows of the walls revealed nothing about the direction or the time of day—it could just as easily be early morning as it could late afternoon. As he breathed in deeply, trying to calm his nerves, a mixture of smells bombarded his senses. Freshly turned dirt, manure, oak, something rotten followed by something sweet. Somehow he knew that these smells belonged to a farm. 

He looked back at his...what, his captors? Companions? Inmates?

Whatever they were, he found that he couldn’t bring himself to say anything to them. He felt awkward but desperate to ask questions. 

He scanned their faces, taking in each expression, judging them, evaluating them. One boy’s eyes, flared and narrowed with hatred, stopped him cold. He looked so _angry_. Thomas thought he could detect a measure of fear in his expression too, but he could have imagined it as well, because whatever it was had gone as quickly as it came. 

In any case, Thomas wouldn’t be surprised if the kid came at him with a knife. He had light brown hair and severely arched eyebrows which...kind of made him look permanently surprised. When they made eye contact, the boy shook his head and turned away, walking toward a greasy iron pole with a wooden bench next to it. A multicolored flag hung limply at the top of the pole, with no wind to reveal its pattern. 

Shaken, Thomas could do nothing but stare at the boy’s back for a few moments until he turned and took a seat. Thomas quickly looked away. 

Suddenly the leader of the group—he was perhaps seventeen or eighteen—took a step forward. The dark-skinned boy had short, cropped hair, his face clean-shaven, but other than the permanent scowl and the strange gloves, there was nothing scary or out-of-the-ordinary about him at all. His clothing was normal (if not a touch too warm for their current environment). A black long-sleeved shirt. Jeans. A digital watch. Sneakers. 

For some reason the clothing here surprised Thomas. It seemed like everyone should be wearing something more menacing—like prison garb. 

“It’s a long story, shank,” the boy said. “Piece by piece, you’ll learn—I’ll be takin’ you on the tour tomorrow. You’ll go through the Size-Up; we all do. Til then...just try not to break anything.” He held a out a gloved hand. “Name’s Alby.” 

Thomas reluctantly shook it. Suddenly, some instinct took a hold of Thomas’ body and panic swelled inside him once again. He turned away from Alby and walked to a nearby tree, where he plopped down to sit with his back against the scratchy bark. The panic was almost too much to bear and Thomas knew that right now, where he was—wherever he was—it would not help. He needed to calm down. He took a deep breath and forced himself to try and accept the situation. _Just go with it,_ he thought. _You won’t figure anything out if you give in to fear_. 

“Tell me.” Thomas called out, struggling to keep his voice steady. “Tell me the long story.” He paused. “...Please.” 

Alby glanced at his friends closest to him, and Thomas studied the crowd again. His original estimate had been pretty close—there were probably fifty or sixty of them, ranging from boys in their midteens to young adults like Alby, who seemed to be one of the oldest. In that moment, Thomas realized with a sickening lurch that he had no idea how old _he_ was. His stomach dropped and his heart sank at the thought—he was so lost he didn’t even know his own age. 

“Seriously, where am I?” Thomas said again, this time not bothering to control his voice. For a moment, no one moved or said anything. Thomas sighed, closed his eyes, and brought his hands up to massage his aching temples for a moment. 

He heard shuffling feet. Thomas opened his eyes to find Alby walking over and sitting down crossed-legged in front of him. The crowd of boys followed like sheep and packed in behind him. Heads popped up here and there, kids leaning in every direction to get a better look. 

Though their gawking still made him uncomfortable, Thomas guessed that they viewed this as some form of entertainment—almost like a break in whatever routine their lives consisted of here. He still felt like a rather disappointing circus act, but Thomas couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed with them. Had his and any one of those boys’ roles been reversed, he knew he’d probably be doing the same. 

Alby’s voice snapped his attention back to the here-and-now. “If you ain’t scared,” the boy said, “you ain’t human. Act any different and I’d throw you off the cliff myself, cause it’d mean you’re a psycho.”

“The...Cliff?” Thomas asked, blood draining from his face. 

“Fuck it,” Alby said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Ain’t no way to start these conversations, you get me? We don’t kill shanks like you here, I promise. Just try and avoid _being_ killed. Survive. Whatever.” 

He paused, and Thomas realized his face must have whitened even more at those words. 

“Man,” Alby said, then ran his hands over his short hair as he let out a long sigh. “I ain’t good at this—you’re the first Greenbean since Nick died.” 

Thomas’ eyes widened, and another boy stepped up and playfully smacked Alby across the back of his head. “Wait for the bloody tour, Alby,” he said, his voice thick with an odd accent. “Kid’s gonna have a buggin’ heart attack, ain’t nothin’ even been heard yet.” 

Alby responded to him, but Thomas didn’t register what he said because the splitting pain in his skull had just vanished without a trace. 

...What?

At was as if someone had snapped their fingers and replaced the sharp insistent pounding with a tranquil, glassy quiet. His thoughts slowed, his mind went blessedly blank, and he felt a cool peacefulness wash over him, laced with the quiet assurance that everything was going to be okay. 

Which was...ridiculous. Of course it wasn’t. Thomas knew it wasn’t. Look at where he was! And the fact that he didn’t even remember how he got there should have been a bright red flag all on its own. He knew all of this, but suddenly none of it really seemed relevant anymore. 

It should have felt bizarre. Instead, Thomas just felt...

Well, Thomas didn’t know how he felt, exactly.

He was brought back to the present by the kid with the accent kneeling down and looking Thomas in the face. “Name’s Newt, Greenie, and we’d be all right cheery if you would forgive our klunk-for-brains new leader here,” he said with a careless smirk on his young face.  
The boy seemed a lot nicer than Alby, though he did not offer his hand. 

Newt and Alby were exactly the same height, but Newt looked to be about a year or so younger. He had blonde hair and a lithe, skinny kind of build, though Thomas suspected he was a lot stronger than he looked. 

“Pipe it, shuck-face,” Alby grunted, pulling Newt down to sit next to him. “At least he can understand _half_ what I’m saying.” There were a few light, scattered laughs, and then everyone gathered behind Alby and Newt, packing in even tighter, waiting to hear what they said with bated breath. 

Alby spread his arms out, palms up. “This place is called the Glade, all right? It’s where we live, where we eat, where we sleep—we call ourselves the Gladers. That’s all you—“ 

“Who sent me here?” Thomas demanded, fear finally giving way to anger, the strange peacefulness gone. “How’d—“

But Alby’s gloved hand shot out before he could finish, grabbing Thomas by his shirt as he leaned forward on his knees. “C’mon, Greenbean, get up, get up!” Alby stood, pulling Thomas with him. 

Thomas finally got his feet under him, scared all over again. He backed against the tree, trying to get away from Alby, who stayed right in his face. 

“No interruptions, boy! Whacker, if we told you everything, you’d die on the spot, right after you klunked your pants. Baggers’d drag you off, and you ain’t no good to any of us then, are ya?” 

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Thomas said slowly, barely processing the gibberish anymore. He felt like his brain was on overload. 

Newt reached out and grabbed Alby by the shoulders. “Alby, lay off a bit. You’re hurtin’ more than helpin’, you know?” 

Alby let go of Thomas’ shirt with a light shove and stepped back, his chest heaving. “Ain’t got time to be nice, Greenie. Old life’s over, new life’s begun. Learn the rules quick. Listen; don’t talk. You get me?” 

Thomas glanced over at Newt, hoping for help. All he got was a vaguely apologetic expression in return. 

Everything inside him churned and hurt, and the tears that had yet to come burned his eyes and blurred his vision. 

Newt nodded. “Greenie....you get him, right?” 

Thomas fumed, wanted to punch somebody. But he simply said, “Yeah.” 

“Good that.” Alby said. “First day. That’s what today is for you, shank. Night’s coming. Runners will be back real soon. The Box came late today, ain’t got time to get the tour in now. Tomorrow morning, first thing. After that, we’ll get you Sized. Make you useful.” 

Thomas didn’t know what he meant by ”Sized”, but it was becoming increasingly clear that no one was going to answer his questions. 

Alby turned toward Newt. “Get him a bed, get him to sleep.” 

“Good that.” said Newt. 

Thomas folded his arms, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Emptiness tore away at his insides, quickly replaced by a sadness that squeezed his heart. It was all too much—where was he? Why couldn’t he remember anything? What was this place? Was it some kind of prison? If so, why had he been sent here, and for how long? The language was odd, and none of the boys seemed to care whether he lived or died. Tears threatened to fill his eyes once more, but he refused to let them come. 

What had he _done_?

Alby’s eyes returned to Thomas, softening briefly, almost imperceptibly, around the edges. “A few weeks, you’ll be happy, shank. You’ll be happy and helpin’. None of us knew jack shit on the first day, you neither. New life begins tomorr—“

Alby hadn’t even finished his sentence when a sudden, piercing scream tore through the air. High and shrill, the barely-human shriek rang out impossibly loud across the courtyard. The sound pounded hard against Thomas’ ears, stabbed viciously into his skull like someone was trying to shove a dull knife clean through his head, and Thomas could hear absolutely nothing else. On instinct, he squeezed his eyes shut tight tight _tight_ and clamped his hands over his ears. And he couldn’t fucking think but Thomas knew, he knew he couldn’t take another _fucking second_ or he was going die, it was too much, his head was splitting in two, he was sinking to his knees, god, it was too much, too much, please make it _stop_ —

The sound cut off. 

He opened his eyes. 

Thomas felt his visceral relief wiped away in an instant, felt his blood turn into icy slush as he realized that the horrible sound had come from the wooden building he’d observed earlier. 

The crowd of boys slowly got up from where they too were kneeling—or in some cases laying down completely. As one, they looked toward the direction the scream had come from and scattered, a few walking purposefully toward the sound, most scrambling to get away from it, and some standing still, looking awkward and unsure of what to do. 

Even even Alby and Newt were still gathering their bearings when Thomas looked back at them, the latter’s forehead creasing in concern. 

What the fuck _was_ that? And why was everyone acting as though it wasn’t a big deal? 

“Shuck it,” said Alby. 

“Can’t the bloody med-jacks handle that boy for ten minutes without needin’ our help?” Newt said. 

Alby shook his head and kicked the ground, sending little clumps of dirt and grass flying in all directions. Without further comment, he turned and started jogging in the direction of the wooden building. 

Newt glanced at Thomas and then stared off into a point in space for a minute. Thomas could just _see_ the gears turning in the other boy’s head as Newt’s eyes unfocused and he chewed on his lip. 

Abruptly, he looked back up at Thomas, eyes clear, as if he’d just gotten an idea. 

“Chuckie!” he shouted, and one of the boys who were still awkwardly standing near where Thomas had popped up in the box looked up. 

Newt beckoned him over with a hand. 

“Chuck’ll be a good fit for ya,” Newt said quietly to Thomas as the other boy approached. “Wee little fat shank, but he’s a nice sap when all’s said and done.” 

Chuck finally reached them, hands on his hips. He was short and pudgy. And—jesus, he looked so _young_. Probably the youngest of any in the group he’d seen thus far—maybe twelve or thirteen years old. His curly brown hair brushed the tips of his ears, and blue eyes shone through an otherwise pitiful face, round and flushed. 

Newt clapped a hand to the young boy’s shoulder. “You’re in charge of the Greenbean’s sleeping arrangements. Think you can do that for me?” 

Chuck nodded vigorously, looking eager to have been given a specific task. 

Newt started to turn away, but sent a lingering look back at Thomas as he did so, seeming unsure of himself. 

Thomas felt as though he should say something, and he was about to open his mouth when Newt finally came out with—

“Sorry, Thomas.” 

Newt set off in the direction of the wooden building, running. Thomas stared at his back, feeling his own eyebrows begin to furrow. Something about that last statement struck Thomas as...off. He couldn’t put his finger on it. 

He never got the chance, either, because as soon as he looked away from Newt, the boy at his side began talking. 

“Ben’s in there, sicker than a dog. _They_ got him. If he were in his right mind, he’d feel sorry. He can’t control it, after all.” Chuck’s voice still carried the high timbre of childhood. 

“They?” Thomas did _not_ like the malicious way the boy had said the word. 

Chuck looked surprised and a little ashamed, as if he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 

“Who are _They_?” 

“Better hope you never find out,” the kid answered dismissively, looking uncomfortable with the situation. “My name’s Chuck,” he said. 

A pause. 

Then, “But you knew that. Sorry. I was the Greenbean until you showed up.” Chuck held out his hand. 

_This is my guide for the night?_ Thomas thought. He couldn’t shake his extreme discomfort, and now annoyance crept in as well. Nothing made sense; his head felt crowded.

“Why is everyone calling me Greenbean?” he asked, shaking Chuck’s hand quickly, then letting go. 

Chuck began walking toward a corner of the Glade, and Thomas followed. 

“Cause you’re the newest Newbie.”  
Chuck pointed at Thomas and laughed. Another scream came from the house, though this time substantially less loud and painful. Thomas no longer felt as though his head was being cleaved in two, and from the looks of it, neither did Chuck. Still, it sounded like a starving animal being tortured. 

“How can you be laughing?” Thomas asked, horrified by the noise. “It sounds like somebody’s dying in there.” 

“He’ll be okay. No one dies if they make back in time to get the Serum. It’s all or nothing. Dead or not dead. Just hurts a lot.” 

This gave Thomas pause. “What hurts a lot?” 

Chuck’s eyes wandered as if he wasn’t sure to say. “Um, gettin’ stung. By the Grievers.” 

“Grievers?” Thomas was only growing more and more confused. _Stung. Grievers._ The words had a heavy weight of dread to them, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wanted to know what Chuck was taking about. 

Chuck shrugged, then looked away as they passed a group of boys in a small, sandy clearing setting up what looked to be crudely painted wooden targets. 

He distantly heard Chuck say, “You should get some food in you, you know. Everyone’s hungry when they come out of the Box, and you kinda have a big day tomorrow.” 

He didn’t respond, too busy trying to figure out what to say so that he would actually receive an answer. Thomas was curious as to what those boys in the clearing were doing. He was. 

But he knew that wasn’t the question he really needed to be asking right now. 

Thomas sighed in frustration. “Looks like you barely know more than I do,” he said, but he knew it wasn’t true. His memory loss was strange. He mostly remembered the workings of the world—but emptied of the specifics. Images of people flashed across his mind, but there was no recognition, their features replaced with haunted smears of color. He couldn’t think of one person he knew, couldn’t recall a single conversation. No faces. No names. Like a book completely intact but missing one word in every ten, making it miserable and confusing to read. He didn’t even know his age. 

“Chuck, how...old do you think I am?” 

The boy scanned him up and down. “I’d say sixteen. And in case you were wondering, five-nine, brown hair. Oh, and ugly as fried liver on a stick.” He snorted a laugh at his own joke. 

But Thomas was so stunned he’d barely registered the last part. Sixteen? He was _sixteen?_ That couldn’t be right. He felt so much older. 

“Are you serious?” He paused, searching for words. “How...” He didn’t even know how to finish that sentence. 

“Don’t worry, you’ll be all whacked for a few days, but then you’ll get used to this place. I have. We live here, this is it. Where we are’s better than living in a pile of klunk.” 

Deciding not to ask what _klunk_ even meant, Thomas went for the obvious. “And...where _is_ that, exactly? What is this place? Who sent me here—and—and why?” 

“Greenie, what you’re feeling? We’ve all felt it. We’ve all had First Day, fresh out of the Box. Things are...bad. But—“ 

“Is this a prison?” Thomas interrupted, cutting straight to the chase. On some level Thomas thought he appreciated Chuck’s attempts at comfort, but that really wasn’t what he needed right now. He needed answers. He dug in the darkness of his thoughts, trying to find a crack to his past. 

Chuck scratched the back of his neck. “Honestly? Nobody here really knows for sure. None of us can remember anything from before the moment we step out of the Box.” 

Thomas was unsurprised. So nobody else can remember anything either. He’d pretty much expected that. Still, that wasn’t to say he wasn’t severely disappointed by the kid’s answer. 

It really wasn’t just Chuck. How come no one could tell him what the hell was going on here? Anyone who knew—or seemed like they knew—kept leaving him with creepy fucking non-answers about this place. It was starting to grind his nerves. It only made it worse to think that even if he _did_ get answers from anyone, he wouldn’t know if they were telling the truth. 

But Chuck wasn’t finished. “But we—all of us—have one thing in common. Well, almost all of us. Whoever put us here knew that we could...do things. Things other people can’t. Like Ben back there, with that scream.”

Thomas looked up from his feet.  
Everywhere they stepped, these  
small-leafed weeds cropped up at random, tiny yellow flowers peeping through as if searching for the sun, long disappeared behind the enormous walls of the Glade. 

“Chuck, what are you saying?” Thomas asked, shaking his head and trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice.

“Well, some of us can make plants grow and stuff. That’s why the gardens do so good. Always have enough greens to eat, if nothin’ else.” 

_This just keeps getting weirder and weirder,_ Thomas thought. 

Chuck continued rambling. “Winston can phase through solid objects. Says it’s something about changing his density or whatever. Tim can make himself turn into some kind of weird vapor-gas—Oh! Clint and Jeff—those are our medjacks, ‘cause both of them can tell you exactly what’s wrong with you just by lookin’, and then they heal you up real quick when they touch you, and their eyes go all weird, and it’s like you never even got hurt in the first place.” 

Chuck stopped for breath, and Thomas couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “Chuck, what you’re talking about—it isn’t even possible. Humans have limits, okay, and I hate to be the one to break this to you—“

“Greenbean. Stop,” Chuck said firmly, and Thomas was surprised enough at the interruption to actually shut his mouth. Chuck sighed, and it was such a hollow, sad sound. Suddenly he seemed so much older than thirteen. 

“Are you sure you don’t want any food from Frypan before you get a bed?” 

“No,” Thomas heard himself say. “I’m not hungry.”

A couple of hours later, after the invisible sun had set and the giant walls had closed by themselves and scared the shit out of him, Thomas found himself lying a cot that had been tied to two trees. 

Chuck lay beside him, snoring. 

Sleep felt miles away for Thomas, though. He couldn’t shake the hopelessness and despair that coursed throughout his body and mind. It had been one endless—and strange—day. 

It was just so...weird. He remembered lots of little things about life, eating, studying, playing, general images of the world. But any detail that would fill in the picture to create a complete and true memory had been erased somehow. It was like looking at an image through a foot of muddy water. More than anything else, perhaps, he felt... _sad_.

Thomas wondered about Chuck, too, whether he knew more than he let on. He was a quirky kid, funny, and he seemed innocent, but who was to say? Really, he was just as mysterious as everything else in the Glade. 

He thought back to his brief conversation with that Newt kid before he’d run off. Remembering it put a sour flavor in his mouth. He knew it. Something was just... _not right_ about that encounter, but for the life of him Thomas could not pinpoint what. 

When it hit him, Thomas wished it hadn’t. 

The last thing Newt had said to him—

_Sorry, Thomas._

Thomas had never told him his name.

He lay in silence for the longest time after that, staring at a starless sky and listening to the sounds of 50 other boys all around him, breathing softly in sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to whip this chapter into shape quickly and update sooner, but i wasn’t able to finish before i left for camp for a few days. so! i apologize for that, but i’m back with a much longer chapter and things are starting to move a little faster and deviate from the novels/movies a little more. 
> 
> as always, hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> \- jess <3


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